


Four Lives They Could Have Had (and One They Do)

by donutsandcoffee



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, surprisingly not an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutsandcoffee/pseuds/donutsandcoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: destiny, from anon.</p><p>Gavin and Michael get creative. They have never heard of the term ‘AU’, but they don’t need to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Lives They Could Have Had (and One They Do)

**Author's Note:**

> or, that one fic that cements the fact that I can literally make mavin out of anything
> 
> originally posted [on tumblr](http://michaelsgavin.tumblr.com/post/87614082085/four-lives-they-could-have-had-and-one-they-do); on ao3 for organization
> 
> for an actual au, check out [Click](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1138843)

**1\. Grand Theft Auto V**

After so many let’s plays—and so many Grand Theft Auto ones—they have reached a point where they don’t even need to say a single word to one another anymore; Gavin stops in front of Michael, and when Michael’s character climbs into the passenger seat, everyone knows the pact has been made.

The cheerful announcement of, “Team Nice Dynamite!” by Michael would’ve cleared the non-existent doubts, anyways.

That was ten minutes ago.

Now, Michael is cheerfully shooting at Geoff’s car, Gavin still behind the wheels. Geoff tries to survive, but a particularly unfortunate placement of a black sedan blocks his only escape route, and soon his character dies.

“Three down, one to go!” Michael announces, and does a high-five with Gavin.

“Fuck, am I the only one who’s still alive?” Ray asks.

“Not for long,” Gavin smirks into his microphone. “Not when Team Nice Dynamite is in effect.”

“So, what are you guys now, some mafia couple?” Ryan comments, “Bonnie and Clyde style?”

“ _Of course_ , Ryan,” Michael says, tone dripping with sarcasm, “we’re actually on a date now. Gavin’s idea. He thought high speed car chases with guns are  _romantic_.”

“You  _love_  it, Michael!” Gavin protests, playing along. “Isn’t that why you were in the business in the first place? You love the danger, the adrenaline rush. Your job as an electrician didn’t satisfy you.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t love it,” Michael replies, and he’s half-laughing now. “But sometimes I like things old-fashioned too, you know? Candlelight dinners in fancy restaurants, the whole thing. But I understand. You wouldn’t know any better, born and raised as the heir of the seventh generation of the Free Mafia Family.”

“You never told me, Michael,” Gavin instinctively pouts. “I would do anything to make you happy.”

“I  _am_  happy,” Michael says, “because you’re my boy.”

“I am gagging now and I need to do something before I puke,” Ray interrupts, right before he suddenly appears on everyone’s screen, swerving into the highway lane beside Michael and Gavin with a motorbike.

He’s carrying a rocket launcher.

“JESUS,” Gavin says.

“ _NOO!”_  Michael shouts.

Their reactions are a few seconds too late, though, and one explosion later, Ray comes victorious.

They play a couple more rounds, the video gets uploaded, and more people comment on Ray’s amazing timing with the rocket launcher than their made up mafia love story, if any, but Gavin doesn’t forget.

 

 

-

**2\. Minecraft**

“What if I was an actual creeper, though,” Gavin says randomly, in the middle of a Minecraft Let’s Play. It’s one of those episodes that sound awesome in theory but turns out to be lackluster in practice, and how successful this is going to be now fully depends on how interesting the conversations they have.

So Gavin gets creative, because he’s  _Gavin_.

“What?” Michael says. Michael is always the first to react to Gavin’s stupid suggestions. Gavin likes to think it’s because Michael pays attention to him most.

“I was saying, what if I was a real creeper,” he repeats. “You know, what if the game’s real and you guys are, I don’t know, hunters or something and I’m a creeper.”

“Then you can’t go near us,” Ray points out. “Can’t even touch us. If we touch you, the sensation would be too intense for you and you’ll explode, sexual innuendo fully intended.”

Everyone laughs, and Gavin says, “but I can still hang out with you guys, though?”

Geoff says, “yeah, no, we’re not stupid enough to do that,” at the same time Michael says, “of course we will!”

Gavin turns to Michael, both in-game and in real life, misty-eyed. “Michael!”

“You have a death wish,” Ryan tells Michael.

“I have an  _awesome_  wish,” Michael counters, “I mean, how cool would it be, having a creeper friend? We can like, be roommates or something. Separated by a wall or whatever.”

“He’ll probably accidentally walk into your area and blow up on the first day,” Jack joins in.

“Then I’ll make sure he won’t. You know, like Pushing Daisies, the TV show? I’ll put a lot of glass blocks between us or something—glass so I can still see him—and we make sure everything is segregated.”

“Aw, that is  _so sweet_ ,” Geoff says, his voice a startlingly good imitation of a gossiping high school girl. “Are you guys going to kiss through the glasses too?”

“Oh, we do,” Michael says without missing a beat, and  _Gavin’s heart_  misses a beat.

“We touch butts too,” Gavin says, feigning nonchalance. “We’ll make the cover of the Minecraft Geographic Channel magazine: the Mating Rituals of an Interspecies Human-Creeper Relationship.”

“We actually just jerk off a lot,” Michael adds.

Everyone laughs again, and nobody notices how Gavin’s voice wavered.

“I will buy a copy of that, not gonna lie,” Ray says.

“Are you kidding me?” Geoff says, “I’ll buy a dozen, and I don’t even read fucking National Geographic.”

The conversation topic shifts to what magazines they read (“let’s be honest, all of us read porn magazines,” claims Ray), but the idea of the Hunter-Creeper romance takes a permanent residence in Gavin’s mind, neatly tucked beside the Mafia-Heir-and-Electrician-Turned-Mafia romance.

 

 

-

**3\. Olympic 2012**

The Xbox is making a low hum, almost unheard due to the  _clank, clank, clank_  of beer bottles as Michael rummages the fridge for some drinks.

“You know, I still couldn’t believe you made me play this game again,” Michael says as he walks back into his living room and passes the beer to Gavin.

Gavin scoots sideways on the sofa to give some room for Michael. “Do you want to let Ray’s evil regime over the office to reign forever, Michael?”

It is the day before the next versus episode, another Gavin vs. Ray, and Gavin is planning to bring Mark Nutt back.  _Third time’s the charm_ , he told Michael this morning in the office.

It’s now evening, after dinner, and Gavin is practicing the game with Michael. If one would broaden the definition of ‘practicing’ to include ‘consistently failing miserably in every attempt.’

“I don’t know how can someone suck so much at this game,” Michael comments exasperatedly as Gavin misses another shot with his gun, “YOU CAN’T EVEN SHOOT THOSE TARGETS PROPERLY!”

“Maybe it’s because I’m better at archery,” Gavin says. While probably unrelated, the fact isn’t completely untrue—Gavin’s in-game archery is actually the only skill he manages to improve on.

They play another round in silence, and Michael wins, again. With perfect score, again.

“I guess if we were Olympic athletes, you’d be a shooter, would you?” Gavin whines, and Michael laughs.

“And you’d be what, an archer?”

“I’m Mark Nutt, obviously.”

“Well,  _Mark Nutt,_ ” Michael says, drawing out the words  _Mark Nutt_ , “18th Century called, they want their weapon back.”

“Ha bloody ha. I don’t settle with such an easy tool like  _guns_. Archery requires so much more skill, calculation and precision.”

“Which is why you keep missing your target with the much-easier-to-use gun,” Michael quips, then laughs. “God, if we were Olympic athletes I bet we’d be arguing about this every day. One morning I would even just come up to you and offer you a time machine so you could go back in time and be relevant again.”

“What a nice offer,” Gavin replies with dry, mocking excitement, “why are you so generous to me, Mikey-Wikey?”

“Because I’m flirting with you, Gavvy-Wavy, you’ve heard the story about the Olympic village. Everyone’s fucking everyone.”

There’s a beat.

Gavin feels his stomach flip, and apparently Michael just realizes what he just said, because he looks embarrassed now.

Michael clears his throat. “So, uhm,” he says, “one more round?”

“One more round,” Gavin echoes, and there is another moment of awkward silence as they play another round of shooting.

 

 

-

**4\. Worms**

“It was a war, you see,” Gavin says gravely, hands moving animatedly. His glass shot number one billion and one left untouched. “We were on the opposite sides of the bloody conflict. Like, actual bloody, the one that’s red and liquid, not just expletive-bloody—”

He clears his throat. “Anyways, we were fighting, and I wasn’t—I was never a bad fighter, you know? Wouldn’t use a bazooka because that would be too easy. Give me a rope and a dynamite and I can pull of maneuver you wouldn’t even  _dream_  of doing.

“But I couldn’t bring myself to kill him,” he slams his hands on the table, “because—because it’s  _Michael_ , you know? So I pretend to be stupid, and clumsy, so I don’t have to kill him. I still remember, crawling up the hill, my entire body aching, begging me to stop—but it was either Michael or another worm over the hill. And I would  _never_  kill Michael.”

There’s a pause, a lull in the conversation.

“Do you want to know a secret?” He says after the moment passed, voice almost a whisper, like he’s revealing something important, something delicate. “I think Michael can’t kill me either. The last battle we were in, he kept walking into mines, even though it was obviously there. A tragic love story, ours indeed—”

His story is cut off by a tap on his shoulder. He turns, almost falling flat on his face in the process, and two hands quickly grab his shoulder to steady him.

“Michael,” he thinks. Says. Is there even a difference?

“You’ve just told a ten-minute story on how we’re  _actual fucking worms_  in a war, and you’re talking to a bottle of ketchup,” Michael says. Well, that explains why his conversation partner has been so silent and so… red. “I’m taking you home.”

Gavin lets Michael manhandle him before passing out in the car, and if Michael keeps flicking warm smiles to him that deepen throughout the ride, Gavin doesn’t know.

 

 

-

**(1. Reality)**

Gavin wakes up with an entire orchestra playing right beside his ears, and it takes him a few minutes of writhing and moaning before he realizes that it’s just his hangover.

And then the memories come rushing back to him.

Too many shots of whiskey, a rant on worms to a bottle of ketchup. Michael, practically carrying Gavin back to his own place, gently tucking him into his bed. Gavin doesn’t remember much past that, but it’s enough to make his face heat up in embarrassment when his eyes meet Michael’s later at wrok.

He fakes a headache to avoid lunch and lunch conversations. The universe hates him though, because Michael doesn’t go for lunch either, doing a last-minute editing of today’s Rage Quit.

So now it’s just the two of them in the office, side by side. Just peachy. Not.

“So, yesterday I heard this interesting story,” Michael starts talking, his tone laced with mockery, and somehow it  _hurts_  to hear. “We were worms in it.”

“You are, clearly, just jealous of my very active imagination,” Gavin replies.

“We were  _worms_ ,” Michael repeats, half-chuckling now, “actually fighting together in a war.”

“ _Against_ each other, actually. That’s what makes a tragic love story.  _That_ ’s the billion dollar Hollywood movie idea.”

Gavin wants to smack himself as soon as the words left his mouth. By pointing that out, Michael is now reminded of that one particularly embarrassing point of the story and how is he supposed to explain  _that_? He needs to come up with something now, an explanation, a  _distraction—_ but it’s too late because Michael has already said, “actually, speaking of, I’ve always wondered. Why do we always get together in those stories?”

“Because it’s our destiny,” Gavin quips in desperation.

Worst explanation, worst phrasing.

Well fuck.

It was intended as a joke, of course, but it came out a little too close to the truth—or at least what Gavin hopes to be the truth—that it  _hurts_ , it really does, when Michael laughs it off.

Gavin feels like there’s something stuck in his throat and he can’t help mumbling, “why can’t we?”

Michael suddenly stops laughing and Gavin freezes.

Fuck, it was too loud. It was too loud, and Michael heard it, and  _why_ did he even bother saying it, fuck, fuck,  _fuck_. There’s a moment of tense silence between them before he musters enough courage to look away from his computer screen, at Michael.

Michael’s expression is inscrutable.

Gavin doesn’t know if this is better than outright anger or disgust.

“So, you have a lot more of those stories? From all the different games we’ve played?” Michael asks, and this time the question is not mocking, or angry.

“And a lot more from those we haven’t,” Gavin comes clean. There isn’t much left to hide, anyway. “My favorite is still the GTA one, though. Our first story.” There was no reply, so Gavin tries to play it off as a joke, “It’s classic, you see.”

“Funny,” Michael says, “cause I have a favorite too.” Gavin still can’t read his face and it starts to scare him.

“Do you, Michael,” Gavin tries.

“I do,” Michael says.

“Which one?”

Michael turns and has his body fully facing him now, and it suddenly hits Gavin that they are really  _close_  to each other, knees almost bumping. Gavin stares at it, at the small space between their knees, because he can’t bear to keep looking at Michael’s face.

“My favorite,” Michael says, after what feels like a lifetime, “is the one where we’re just normal people working for a gaming company, making youtube videos together every day.”

Gavin whips his head up to look at Michael, and he sees a small smile tugging on Michael’s lips. It sends a wave of relief—of pleasure—through Gavin, and he’s supposed to be scared but he isn’t when he asks, “do we end up together in that one?"

An uncharacteristically soft laughter escapes Michael’s still-smiling lips.

Michael leans even closer now and their lips touch, for a moment, but it’s enough to make Gavin’s entire body tingles and warms.

“Have you even been fucking listening, you idiot,” Michael says when they part, and then, before Gavin can protest, mumbles, "Always."

He’s blushing, and smiling, and the combination looks good on Michael’s face.

“Then I think I change my mind,” Gavin says, grabbing onto Michael’s collar and closes the distance between them again, “that’s my favorite too.”

 

 

-


End file.
